Word.ws English Dictionary

wretch

/ɹɛt͡ʃ/

wretch noun: an unhappy, unfortunate, or miserable person. Also the misspelling of retch.

Noun

wretch (plural wretches)

  1. An unhappy, unfortunate, or miserable person.
    • The poor wretch, who lay motionless a long time, just began to recover his senses as a stage-coach came by.1742, Henry Fielding, chapter 12, in Joseph Andrews, archived from the original on 05 Apr 2012
    • The four unhappy wretches labouring under sentence of banishment were freed from their fetters, to rejoin their former society; and three days given as holidays to every convict in the colony.1789, Watkin Tench, chapter 14, in The Expedition to Botany Bay, archived from the original on 03 Mar 2011
  2. An unpleasant, annoying, worthless, or despicable person.
    • Swear to me but, thou bold wretch! said she, swear to me, that Pamela Andrews is really and truly thy lawful wife, without sham, without deceit, without double-meaning; and I know what I have to say!1740, Samuel Richardson, chapter 71, in Pamela
    • I asked that selfish wretch, Winterblossom, to walk down with me to view her distress, and the heartless beast told me he was afraid of infection!1823, Walter Scott, chapter 32, in Saint Ronan's Well, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2012
  3. (archaic) An exile.

Also used as

wretch is also the misspelling of retch.

wretch meaning in Indonesian

wretch in Indonesian

unhappy, unfortunate, or miserable person
orang malang, orang celaka, bedebah

Examples of wretch in a sentence

  • The old man died a penurious wretch; eighty-thousand dollars in the mattress and as many holes in the roof.
  • The wretch 'Grizled with hair' (meaning 'Having grey hair with hair') is a typical Durfey miscoinage.
  • The wretch had the pernicious habit of writing in Milanese dialect.

All 12 example sentences with wretch

Forms of wretch

pluralwretches

Plural of wretch: wretches

Origin of wretch

From Middle English wrecche, from Old English wreċċa (“exile, outcast”), from Proto-Germanic *wrakjô (“exile, fugitive, warrior”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreg- (“to track, follow”). Doublet of garçon.

From confusion with the noun.

Words formed from wretch

Words that rhyme with wretch

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about wretch

What does wretch mean?
Wretch means an unhappy, unfortunate, or miserable person.
What is wretch in Indonesian?
Wretch in Indonesian is orang malang, orang celaka, bedebah. See Wretch meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is wretch?
Wretch is a noun.
How do you pronounce wretch?
Wretch is pronounced /ɹɛt͡ʃ/.
What is the plural of wretch?
The plural of wretch is wretches.

Words near wretch in the dictionary

  1. wrestling with a pig
  2. wrestlings
  3. Wrestlingworth
  4. Wrestlingworth and Cockayne Hatley
  5. wrests
  6. wretch
  7. wretche
  8. wretched
  9. wretcheder
  10. wretchedest
  11. wretchedly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wretch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-wretch.ogg.

Cite this entry: “wretch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wretch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.